Will The Circle Be Unbroken?
by Khaleesi Khupcakes
Summary: He had loved her, not as a thing to play with but he had loved her, he told her once, a few years ago, when a flagon of wine had corrupted his ability to lie to her and they were happy... Kyra remembers a time when they told of wondrous love in the joyous days of childhood.


**Will the Circle be Unbroken?**

He had been so beautiful.

She remembered laying next to the older boy as he slept and tracing her fingers over his collarbone. His skin was pale and dewy with sweat in the light of the candles she'd lit, and his eyelids gently closed in blissful ignorance. His dark brown curls falling in his eyes and spread across the pillow, Kyra had kept running her hands through them, wishing someday their son could be like that.

But there would be no son. Never. Kyra never let it last that long, mainly because Theon was always over-excited or just passed out halfway through. Even though she was three years younger than him, if there was one word she would use to describe Theon Greyjoy it would be pathetic... No, childish... or maybe... juvenile. It didn't matter, whenever she was with him privately she dominated him like he was her little bitch. He ruled over her in other ways, when he rode past her little winter town with Robb Stark and that smile on his face she felt her insides bunch up and her face turn red. She wished she could fight his charms the way she did when he was inside her and she made him squeal in ecstacy the way she did privately when other people were watching, but no, it was then that she became scared little Kyra, blushing and giggling.

Sometimes the manager of the Smoking Log made her dance, other nights sing songs of noble houses with childish voice, sometimes he just made her sit on men's laps and giggle and flash her breasts and pretend to be happy. Theon only ever made her strip and make him feel powerless. Didn't he know he already was though? Surely he could tell that he was no Stark, or that the entire population of Winterfell had it out for him. He wasn't welcome, he was simply tolerated. Kyra could never understand why she had to dominate Theon and get paid for it, the whole North already did it for free.

Maybe it was the fuck he wanted. Having a naked girl in his bed making him feel worthless instead of the Stark family and everyone loyal to them, sometimes Kyra wanted just to talk to him for a few hours, get in his head instead of his pants. She thought he was so interesting, better than any books, she didn't know how to read, and he was _real._ Real enough to fuck and kiss and idolize instead of a white knight riding a unicorn who would sweep her away to Volantis or Pentos or Myr and show her everything there was to see. He was just a boy who had seen more in 18 years than Kyra would in a lifetime. War and rebellion and captivity, his mind was dark and twisted and exotic, he was tortured and brilliant and waiting to be read. Kyra ached to be as interesting as he was, but instead of a tall, dark, handsome prisoner of war she was a skinny blonde wench who never knew her parents and had not a copper to her name. Sometimes she found herself wanting to be all he was, to stand on a cliff in the Iron Islands and look over the land her father ruled, to ride into the forest on a black horse and take down deer with a single arrow, to wear the kraken of Greyjoy with pride and fortitude.

But no, she was just a little girl and whenever she tried to talk to him he wouldn't have any of it, just roll his steel blue eyes and tell her he was tired. She'd reply, 'yes m'lord' and smile and throw him down and do what she did every night they were together.

Now she saw him in the dim light of one of the many rooms of the Dreadfort just the way she was; cold and beaten and sick and weak. His lush brown curls had faded into thin pale straw, his beautiful face a gaunt ruin and his once-statuesque body reduced to a scarred, bony mess. He stood drenched in his own blood, tied to a cross meant for flaying, while she was crumpled in a corner, awaiting the beating that was surely coming from her vicious and frustrated captor. Her bare skin seemed to freeze to the dirty stone floor, her dress lay across the room in a ripped heap but her body ached too much to move. She wanted to get him off that cross, to bathe him and love him again and bring back the Theon Greyjoy she loved, but he was only Reek now, meek, bleak, weak, freak... She was just Kyra, Ramsay Bolton's little toy to be beaten and starved and frozen only to be kicked around some more. If Lord Bolton stayed away for a while, she would curl up next to the cross and sleep in Theon's shadow for the night, only to be punished for it later. Even if he was Reek, if he hadn't bathed for months and was no longer the beautiful young boy she had loved so much, she would stay with him until her last breath, even if his skin was torn from his bones and he collapsed in dust and died as Reek in her arms, she would remain. He had loved her, not as a thing to play with but he had loved her, he told her once, a few years ago, when a flagon of wine had corrupted his ability to lie to her and they were happy.

The door would slam open, and in Lord Bolton would come, raping Kyra as savagely as usual, leering at Theon the whole time, as Kyra sobbed and begged him to stop. He would hit her, whip her, sometimes kick her until she retched up blood, and keep going. She and Theon would never share the same bond again, the two of them might as well be dead, Theon was ruined, Kyra was used up.

The night came when they snuck away, holding tightly to each other in the cold, stumbling through the woods. When he kissed her again, it felt like it had always felt, and she found herself brought to tears. They rested under a tree and held each other like they had when everything had been good still, and proceeded through the snow.

Then the dogs were upon them. Theon sprinted as best he could in the other direction, Kyra leapt into a tree and climbed wildly, dogs snapping at her heels, springing up at her through the branches and she screamed at kicked them away, her frost-bitten foot caught a hound in the jaw, it growled and lunged more angrily than before. It had been a game set up by that awful man, a hunt, he was playing with them, like a cat with a mouse. Kyra burned with anger, she wanted nothing more than to kill him the way he had done to so many others, and take Theon away and fix him.

An arrow lodged itself in the bark of the tree she had scrambled up, thinking it was lodged in some part of her body, Kyra screamed and lost her balance, falling into a snowbank, the hounds came at her, snapping and gnashing, tearing her clothes and skin until Lord Bolton called them away.

But why did she have to throw the rock?

He threw her down on the floor of the empty dark room, she heard Theon yelling at him to stop, silenced by a swift kick in the face. He pressed her face against the stone floor and stripped her roughly, she remembered hearing what Bessa had been told, that fighters would be rewarded a quick death. Kyra could do nothing but remember, there was nothing left to do.

Finally Lord Bolton dragged her to the cross where he tied every whore and enemy, and strapped her limp body to the wooden frame. Kyra coughed and blood erupted over her lips, Theon watched in horror, and suddenly seven year old Kyra saw the ten year old Theon she had fallen in love with, with his scared grey eyes, begging, pleading...

Lord Bolton walked towards her, knife in hand, a leer on his face. A tear cut through the filth on Theon's face, his hand lifted towards her as if he could somehow help her now. Lord Bolton trailed the knife over the bony curves of Kyra's naked body, as if trying to find a good place to begin cutting in. Kyra thrashed in her restraints, the knife bit into her inner thigh, Lord Bolton grinned.

As her end drew closer and her earthly story bordered on it's last page, Theon collapsed against the wall in defeated futility. _Someday_, she thought frantically, _someday the days we loved will come again._.. All Kyra could choke out as she lost blood was the one thing she never got to tell him in the treasured past days, the joyous days of childhood,

"I love you, Theon Greyjoy."


End file.
